Tails of the Stars
by Zack Gregson
Summary: Continued from "A Metroid on the Brain is Worth Two in the Tube" - /s/9227312/1/A-Metroid-on-the-Brain-is-Worth-Two-i n-the-Tube - After barely escaping the fate of Planet Zebes, another galaxy within another world awaits him in a more familiar-feeling atmosphere, where some certain anthro denizens try to help James Campbell with his current dilemma.
1. Chapter 1 - An Anomaly of Some Scale

**THE CHRONICLES OF FINALGAMER**

Tails of the Stars

_"The stars are the street lights of eternity."_

_Rosicrucian Proverb_

Space has always become a marvel to those residing amongst the planets and moons. Seeing other worlds as tiny twinkling stars among many other similar looking stars. Realising that their own worlds look the same from that far away, offering a strange sense of hopefully mutual equality amongst the denizens of the universe. The space around the stars was nothing but a blank darkness where only light existed, travelling onwards eternally towards infinite eyes everywhere at once. Eyes seeing what had become the past, through the eternity of space.

Far away in another universe laid one solar system, where galactic unions had become traumatic of late, and were only being resolved by one covert mercenary group. In the Lylat System, a galactic battle was raging, making the worlds more brighter than the stars around them with flames of war. Amidst this chaos was one small tear in the universe that went unnoticed, except for one ship detecting it.

A body had been thrown through it in a blur of brown and blue. It writhed maddeningly in a panicked futility, the oxygen sucking from its body in the vacuum of space. Nothing to take in, nothing to breathe into, choking and screaming a gargling anguish only to be swallowed by the silence of space.

Had that body been picked up perhaps 15 seconds later, it would surely have suffocated far beyond the point of saving, like a diver that had surfaced too quickly.

The raptor awakened within a metallic room, a monotonous hum forever emitting its single-chord song throughout the place as he laid on a bed. Fluorescent lights beamed into his skull to make him squint and cover his eyes sorely. He tried to get up, examining the place around him. It appeared to be a medical bay, judging by the look of the sharp liquid-emitting instruments around him on various cabinets, all of which kept the same colour motif the room gave. Clinical grey.

About a minute later, the door opened, sliding away with a fwish to reveal a short-looking frog with bulbous blue eyes. He was dressed in an oil-stained shirt and beige jacket with a red cap, speaking in an oddly childish voice that sounded like extremely rapid gibberish. James looked at him perplexed.

"Uhhhh...what the hell's wrong with you?"

The frog spoke again in the same gibbering voice.

"Are you lost or something? Stop speaking like a retard and tell me where I am!"

This only brought another round of jabber, making the raptor clutch his head. He was already feeling rather dazed and weakened from his experience.

"Stop talking like that, you little bastard, I have no time to play with you!"

The confusion and the pain in his chest was not helping his mood. Thinking that maybe this was an actual language, he calmed down a bit and tried to sign out his next words.

"I. DO NOT. UNDERSTAND."

He signed this to the best of his ability with the loud slow patronising voice everyone used when meeting those of another language.

"WHERE. AM. I?"

Something seemed to have lit up in the frog, as he summoned a robot from down the corridor, a classic-looking thing on treadwheels with beady white eyes and a square "mouth". Unfortunately, it spoke in the same sort of gibberish as the frog, only with a metallic twang. James watched the robot move to a cabinet and bring out a small device. It spoke to James, who only replied with a confused tilt of the head, but the frog helped by signalling to lie down onto his side.

He did so, and he felt something placed on the back of his head, something like a needle. It soon latched on with little hooks at the base of his neck, sending a strange electrical tingle through his skull that made him pass out without realisation.

The next time he woke up, his eyes blinked at the now more familiar medical room. The frog was still there, watching him before saying:

"Hey, you're awake finally!"

His words had suddenly become perfect English, much to the raptor's amazement.

"Can ya...uhh...you know what I'm saying now?"

"Y-yeah...I do now...um..."

He wondered if the frog knew what he had said to him previously, but decided not to draw attention to it.

"Wha...how'dya do that?"

"Do what?"

"Make me understand what you're saying, you were just talking total gibberish before!"

"Oh that's just a li'l language codex in yer spine, though seems ya got one in there already with a really weird design. So I had to modify it a teeny bit, that's why ya had to be knocked out, so I could work on it. Sorry 'bout that, but on the plus side, now it'll be pretty open-ended for mostly any language you come across. But I warn ya, it's only ones you hear, not stuff you'll read."

"So...I'm gonna instantly know what someone says in another language, but not what's in a book written in another language?"

"Weeellll," and then the frog began his technological diatribe.

"It works with yer ears which do lotsa complex stuff like context analysers an' emotional transcribers to give the best estimate for what someone else is saying, which then manipulates the soundwaves of certain vocal sounds slowly into yer own language which is already in yer head, as the language ya think in. Not perfect but yer not gonna get anything better.

"It's like having a really really smart guy in yer head figuring out every language ya hear, kinda deducing it an' breaking it down. Then after a while of hearing it, it'll be just like yer own, as well as transmitting out the same language to anyone you talk to, like feedback without you realising it! Like right now, yer actually speaking my own language without realising it, it's all subconscious to ya.

"Actually it was kinda in there already but I just tweaked it to our language and give it a really open easy language codex interface instead of the one language it was built with. Hope ya didn't need it."

"...right. That made absolutely no sense _at all_."

James pinched the bridge of his snout and closed his eyes in frustration at the wall of technobabble his ears had smashed up against. He decided to quickly move to another topic to distract the frog, clutching his head as he sat up.

"So where am I?"

As he stood up, a nauseating bruising feeling on the inside came to him, as if something heavy had sat on him for two hours.

"And why do I feel sore inside so much?"

"We found ya jus' floating alla sudden in space! It was a good thing we were nearby or else you'd have just choked an' froze!"

"W-wait...in space?"

"Yeah! Maybe yer ship got blown up, you're REALLY lucky yanno."

"I...guess I am...um...so..."

He tried to get off the bed, standing a little off-balance as he let his body sort its feelings out.

"Okay, that's three questions for you then. One, who are you? Two, where am I? And three, where am I in a more larger scale?"

"Huh?" The frog looked confused at this so he tried to answer. "Well, my name's Slippy. Slippy Toad! I'm the mechanic aboard the Great Fox, which is where you are. And we're floating between Aquas and Katina at the moment."

"I...never heard of those places."

"Huh? So...you really aren't Lylatian?"

"Lylatian? Sounds like a place in Europe, where the hell's Lylatia?"

"Europe?! Hmmm...okay, you better come with me, you're a real weird one we picked up."

And so Slippy lead him down the corridors, filled with various coloured circuits and panels everywhere he looked, with signs of another language and realising more and more he may well be much further from home than he thought, even with the planet of Zebes he had been to before, but despite his accidental interdimensional travelling it still hadn't sunk in him that he was not even in his own universe anymore.

Eventually they reached the bridge and upon seeing two creatures on either side of him, with one's ears barely visible from a stately captain's chair, he had a flashback to the last time he saw one, full of Space Pirates that gave him an unsavoury experience to say the least, and getting some sort of electronic language guide implanted into him only made him feel more panicky.

"Here he is guys!"

"Thanks Slip," said an older looking hare in a cream-white jacket to his left.

The hare sat at a map of the space around them, rubbing his chin before gazing on James with cautious curiosity. He spoke to him with a drawling accent that reminded the raptor of farms somehow.

"You're very lucky we picked you up, young 'un. What happened to ya?"

"Well..."

James replied tentatively as he tried to think on how to best phrase his explanation.

"I just found myself floating in space, I can't really remember how it happened but I just sorta fainted back on Zebes."

"Zebes huh?"

The hare turned to his computer and looked through the data on it.

"Mmmmm nope, don't know the place. What system is it in?"

"Uhh actually, I dunno, see, I was running away from someone and-"

"Ohhh yer a criminal are ya?" said a brash arrogant voice from his right.

It belonged to a blue-feathered falcon with wing-like hands and red feathers around his eyes, staring at the raptor with distrust.

"If there's a ransom out for ya, you got no place here!"

"Wh-what? No, no no no, I'm not a criminal, I'm just...oh...wait, no place here? So...you...you're not space pirates at all?"

"WHAT?!"

The bird rushed towards the raptor with incredible speed and stared down at him along his beak.

"Don't even think of mixing us with them, pal!"

"Falco, back off." The one in the captain's chair commanded such with the voice of a young strong leader.

"The poor kid's just confused and scared."

"HEY, I'm not scared!" barked James as he stared back at the bird with reinforced bravery. "I'm just a stranger here, that's all, I didn't mean to offend ya but your reaction's made me glad you're not one of them. Besides, you don't look like them. Less fur and feathers they had on them."

Falco sneered incredulously.

"Hmph, well I'm glad yer a fast learner. But you make one wrong move and I'm blasting ya out of the airlock back where we found ya!"

"Pfft fine, if you can even do that, but I warn you, I'm fucking fast..."

Trying not to become unwelcome amongst the crew so quickly, he switched the subject and returned to a state of anxiety in an unfamiliar place.

"...though I dunno what you guys do."

"Well," said the hare who was thankful of the topic change, "we're mercenaries, young 'un. We help out anyone who asks for our help."

"As well as some who can't ask."

The captain spoke once more as he stepped up from his chair, and walked towards the raptor.

A young green-eyed handsome fox of an light orange-red fur colour, who smiled and offered his hand for shaking.

"Name's Fox McCloud, captain of the Star Fox Team. Sorry about Falco, he's just a li'l hot-headed."

"Oh uhh, no need to apologise Captain, he's gotta be a little suspicious in this kinda work, fair enough."

Much as James distrusted most authority, he felt a good vibe from this fox somehow that gave him a feeling of trust. Young, spirited, hopeful. Not old, tired and disillusioned of the world like usual figures he knew.

"Well, true, but anyways, we picked you up near Aquas and wondered where you came from. ROB said you were a space anomaly, some kinda...well he could only guess it as a black hole. Did you get lost in a warp?"

"A warp...nnnnno, no, can't say I was. I was on this planet called Zebes, last thing I remember was seeing stars in the sky and then blacking out. Maybe the Space Pirates threw me out into space."

"Well, space pirates or not," replied the hare navigator, "we found no trace emissions of any ship near you, or of this planet Zebes on any of our maps."

"Maybe they were from REAL far away and warped here!" answered Slippy trying to be helpful.

"Yeah," said Falco sarcastically, "you really think a buncha pirates would go across a universe to dump some poor kid off? They're way lazier than that."

"He's got a point," said the raptor. "I don't think they were the kind to go so far to get rid of me. Also, they could have done something worse to me than throw me out into space. And I'm not even sure if they DID find me or not, I was running from them on this Zebes. I mean I did escape from them, they couldn't have found me...and it couldn't have been that Samus woman..."

"Samus who?"

Slippy asked purely on fascination by the name, as well as pretty much everythng about the stranger.

"Samus, she's this bounty hunter, a human, she was on Zebes too hunting down these pirates I think. They really hated her."

"...uhh...human?" asked Slippy. "Whatsa human?"

"Wait, you never heard of humans?"

The four of them looked confused by the word.

"You know, hairless, fully flesh without fur or feathers or scales, have hands with five fingers, she was in a big suit though so not sure what her skin colour was."

"Mmmmm...nope!" replied the hare in curiosity. "That's another new one to me! You're turning into quite a fascinating one, spouting about some unknown planet and unknown creatures...but whatever the case, you must be new to this part of the universe so, welcome to the Lylat System! Hope you enjoy it and don't cause any trouble."

He chuckled as Fox smirked at this, before turning back to the raptor.

"Listen, we'll drop you off at one of the Cornerian bases in Katina, they'll look after you. But I gotta admit, you look like you're from Sauria."

"Sauria? Why, where's that?"

"Oh, just it's full of creatures like you, reptiles mainly. That strike anything familiar in ya?"

"Uhhh...no...nnno I don't know any place called Sauria. I come from Earth, but I dunno if you know that place at all?"

"Mmmmm nope, pretty sure that's not on our charts either. Alright then, we'll drop ya off at Katina nearby, they'll look after ya...uhh...didn't get your name, what is it?"

"Oh, sorry, it's James. James Campbell."

"James?"

The fox had an odd look on his face, a face that was of surprise and increased intrigue, before replying:

"Huh...well you can go to the med bay you were sleeping in until we get to Katina. Won't take long, probably just a few hours or so."

"Sure, sure that's fine. Um...thank you, Captain, for rescuing me and all."

"No problem...James."

He walked back to his chair and Slippy guided him back to the med bay, leaving the raptor confused at everything around him.

An unknown system far far away from Zebes, that has never heard of humans yet there were four anthros like the ones on Earth, another planet they knew nothing of. Even the Space Pirates knew of Earth, but where was the Lylat System? Was it even in the same universe?

All these questions ran through his head as he sat onto the bed he was on before, trying to straighten his thoughts.


	2. Chapter 2 - Meet the Team

An hour later or so, James got up from the med bay and decided to walk around the place. He was hoping really to learn more about what the ship was, that maybe there was some clue in it about where he was more fully. Also because he was very bored, sitting in a medical bay where he was starting to count how many sharp things were in it. He began wandering aimlessly throughout the ship, which he soon realised was not as large as some ships he had seen.

It seemed even smaller than the Space Pirates' ship, perhaps because there was less crew, of which he had seen only 4 of on the bridge. He heard the hum of an engine turn louder at one point, realising that would lead to engineering.

Eventually, he reached the main core of the ship, a large reactor of some sort whirring and humming to itself with a pulsating blue that seemed to try and burn his eyes. He couldn't even get a clear look at its robust form from the pulsating light. He looked away from it sharply, and saw Slippy bending down at a conduit. The raptor greeted him politely, surprising the mechanic.

"Um...hey?"

"WOAH, uhh...sorry but...you're not supposed to be here."

"Oh, sorry but I...well, I got restless, I was just curious about where I was and all. If you want, I'll go back to the med bay."

"Well um...long as you don't touch anything, you can ask me anything you want. Always good to talk to new people!"

"Well sure, if I won't be in the way."

James stood against the door politely and asked his first question, wanting to keep himself distracted from his inner confusion.

"So, you're all mercenaries then? Any good business been happening?"

"Well, just the war with Andross, always some planet's getting invaded and we go in to take out his forces."

"Andross?"

"Yeah...wow, you must be from REAL far away to have never heard of HIM!"

"Haha, well you know in a way I am so, who's Andross?"

"He's this mad scientist who used to work in Corneria, but he got a bit too crazy and was exiled to Venom. So he spent his time recruiting and building an army to take over the entire system."

"...wow. That's...insane."

James' eyes could only widen in surprise, he never heard of anyone being so textbook megalomaniacal.

"Yeah, we know. We ALL know, he just totalled Corneria, but we came in and stopped it. Then we had to help out in Sector Y against his forces and protect the Cornerian ones."

"So...you're mercenaries, that means you work for money right? Does that mean, if Andross paid you more than the Cornerians you'd join him instead?"

"Oh no! We got priorities! Sure we do it for money...sometimes. But mostly we wanna keep the Lylat System free, that's why Star Fox was made even!"

"Well, that's great to hear. So, did you four just get together and make a team? I mean how did you get this thing, was it one of yours or...?"

"Well you should ask Peppy about that, he was one of the original Star Fox team."

"Peppy?"

"You know, the hare on the bridge."

"Ohhh yeah...didn't get his name. Okay I will. Well...I guess I have to ask, did you join later?"

"Well...there was this original team with Peppy, Fox's dad and another guy, but they broke up real fast, bad business, I dunno much about it. Go ask Peppy if yer that curious."

"Alright then. Well I won't bother ya anymore."

"That's okay!" Slippy looked up with a boyish smile, "I like talking to new people! Keeps the mind a bit fresher, yanno?"

"Hehe, sure. Well thanks Slippy!"

The raptor walked off to try and find the bridge where he last saw the hare named Peppy, now curious of this mercenary team's history.

Retracing his steps back to the med bay, he headed for the bridge on the path where he was led by Slippy before, being cautious to look as inconspicuous as possible. He soon reached it, and asked gingerly:

"Um...hello?"

"Ah! Hello there!"

The hare was the only one on the bridge. No fox ears peering over the seat, no brash bundle of blue feathers on the right, a perfect time.

"You needin' something, young 'un?"

"Oh, well...I was kinda wanting to ask you something, sir..."

James wrung his clawfingers together as he was certain he was about to ask a question that would be sensitive.

"I was talking to Slippy a bit, and I asked him about...how Star Fox got made. And that you were in the original one? I was curious what happened, but if it's bad of me to ask it's okay I'll leave-"

"Oh no no, it's fine now James."

The older hare shifted his position in the chair in front of the navigational computer. James tried to guess his age, thinking he was at least middle-aged.

"First I should tell ya my name's Peppy, no need to call me sir."

"Uhm...sure about that? I think I should somehow, what with you having a captain and all."

"Well if you want. Now whaddaya wanna know?"

"Well...how did you guys make up a team?"

"Ohhhh lemme thinkit now...yes it started around the time Andross was getting outta control...you know who Andross is right?"

"Slippy told me."

"Ah yes...well I knew Fox's dad for a long time, we were best friends. Hell I'm practically Fox's godfather or even uncle now the fact we were so close. We had another guy in our group too called Pigma but I don' wanna remember him."

"Why? If you don't mind me asking."

"He..." A heavy sigh came from the hare's lips. "He betrayed us, like the worst kind of mercenary. Went over to Andross, greedy pig, threw me and McCloud to Andross. I barely survived but...at least I was the only one who survived."

"Oh...god I'm sorry to hear that."

Feeling he should offer some physical show of sympathy, he patted Peppy on the shoulder comfortingly.

"You're a brave great veteran sir. I'm sorry for asking, I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

"I'm over it now. Even Fox is, all it does make our mission more determined to take down Andross and all his forces. Thanks for thinkin' 'bout an old coot like me, James."

"No problem...sir."

The raptor smiled and walked off with one piece of information sated in his mind, heading back to the med bay. It was the first time he had met someone who was an actual war veteran. He felt humbled by the fact he had never been in a war, never fought for a country or a group of people other than his home and the street gangs. And he knew very well that that was quite a different thing altogether.

Upon arriving to the now familiar clinical-looking bed, he saw Falco, standing and waiting with a tall cocky stride, marked by the aggressive red rings around his eyes. His stiff wing-like hands which while clearly feathered, seemed strong and flexible to even become fists as solid as any paw or hand.

"Wondered where you went," he replied bluntly, "I was gonna call you AWOL."

"Alright look, I respect your right to be suspicious, and I'm sorry for wandering around a bit."

"A bit? Look pal, I dunno if you just fell out of a black hole and I don't care, cuz if you hadn't noticed while choking in space, we're in the middle of a war, so I can't just go around babysitting some space junk and I'm not sure if I can trust ya yet."

"Hey, I'm sorry alright? I was just curious about the people who saved my head from exploding in space and turning into actual space junk. If you can't trust me that's fine. You're not the only one to act weird to me."

"Huh? Whatcha mean?"

Falco crossed his arms, his stance demanding explanation.

"Your captain. He acted a bit odd when he met me."

"...wow, you're either a real dumbass or you really aren't from here."

"What?!"

James turned towards the falcon with the face of indignacy.

"Well, I know I'm not stupid, so what's this about?"

"I mean come ON, even Andross' lowest grunts know this. James, that's yer name, right?"

"Yeah, what's that got to do with it?"

"Ugh! Yeah, you aren't from here definitely. James was his dad's name, and his dad got killed fighting Andross, you get it now?!"

The realisation hit him like a punch to the liver, giving him a cold shudder through his body, surprised and saddened. Even though James wasn't an unusual name, especially among those of Scottish descent, he wasn't sure if it was a common name in the Lylat system, so maybe not. Surely Fox wouldn't act so odd meeting every single person called James in this galaxy, would he?

"Oh...well...okay...um...thanks for clearing that up."

"Whatever, I gotta get back to the bridge. Don't wander off so easily or I might think you're a spy and just shoot ya. I gotta watch my back in this kinda job you got that?"

James nodded, understanding fully the logic of this despite the aggressive behaviour Falco showed to him. But now it was getting to him, the ignorance he showed, the attitude of the bird and the tension of waiting and waiting for so long made him begin to turn against himself. The chaos of Zebes had kept his mind off, always having somewhere to go. But trapped on a ship in one room, he began arguing to himself, and the realisation that he was far far away from home began to sink in.

"And you think I'm just some sort of street punk? I mean sure you can fly a big-ass ship, but let's see how well you do on a motorcycle, I'd fuck you up on one! ...what the fuck's happening to me? Why can't I get home...I miss my bike...that fucking Triumph may have started it all but goddamnit...and Sarah! Ohhhh...f-fuck Sarah, what did you do?! Please be okay...please..."

He began to think of home for the first time since ending up in unknown lands. His eyes started to moisten at the slow realisation he could well be far away from the only person he loved.

He also realised that his sudden black out to end up on Zebes had the Army trying to raid his home before that. Did Sarah make it? Was she kidnapped? Was she dead? He remembered the screams she made, painful ones, they must have been brutal to her. James began to weep, clutching himself into a foetal position at the horrible ideas that smeared his mind.

"Sarah...please...please be okay...WHY AM I HERE!? WHY!? AM I IN ANOTHER FUCKING GALAXY!?"

He started banging his fists into the bed he laid on, letting his pain unload. Confused, disoriented, frustrated.

"WHERE THE HELL AM I?! WHERE'S MY HOME!? WHERE THE FUCK IS EARTH!? I WANT TO GO HOME! I CAN'T BE HERE, I NEED TO FUCKING GET HOME!"

He couldn't bear it anymore, howling with fury at how he ended here, strange blackouts dragging him to other worlds that could not be anywhere on Earth.

At that moment Falco appeared in the doorway looking quite pissed off.

"HEY, shut the fuck up in there!"

"FUCK YOU, I WANNA GO HOME!"

"YOU get yourself home, I'm not babysitting yer scaly ass when we dump it on Katina!"

"SO WHAT!? The only friend I ever had is back home, she might be dead for saving me from a fucking army of fascist pricks who probably fucked her dead because I fucking black out and end up IN ANOTHER PLANET AND THEN IN A GODDAMN SPACE SHIP and I don't know WHY and it's all my fault she's DEAD!"

He kept banging his fists into the bed like a child in a tantrum. Falco merely pressed a few buttons on the door to close it with a transparent shield, in case the hitch-hiker turned violent.

"Listen, I dunno what you are or where you come from, but you better be grateful for the fact we were around to drag your ass onboard instead of leaving you to die!"

"I'm grateful goddammit, I'm just having a little shock right now thank you!"

"Well I don't think yer friend would like the sight of you screaming like a stupid kid, pissing off the only four people in all the Lylat System who actually give a damn about ya!"

James let himself calm down after feeling like a jackass, a heavy sigh coming from him as he nodded and laid down again, feeling ashamed.

"...s-s-sorry."

"There, that's better. Now, you be a good boy for us until we get to Katina alright? Go sleep or something."

"Alright...uh...thanks man."

"Also, you don't explode in space. You just suffocate and freeze. Dumbass."

The blue falcon walked off, leaving the raptor to rest again and try to keep his mind off of the people at home, focusing on the here and now. He already got lucky surviving those space pirates. Now he had to deal with this place and its ongoing war with some mad doctor called Andross.

Eventually the Great Fox was hovering above the planet Katina. As they came within range, a voice on the intercom spoke:

"This is Commander Bill Grey of Katina Base, identify yourself."

"Hey Bill! It's Fox here, you don't recognise my ship now?"

"FOX! Hey man how's it going?! Sorry dude, can't be too careful though, even with that dump of scrap you call a ship."

"At least I got a cooler helmet than you right? Listen, we got a refugee we picked up, got dumped out in space and he needs to rest somewhere while we're patrolling, you mind?"

"Sure he's not with Andross' army?"

"Probably from Sauria, but he says he isn't. And I agree, too up-to-date and the language isn't the same. But he's definitely not from Andross."

"Alright we'll take him in for ya, we'll prep a landing zone."

The Great Fox descended slowly onto Katina as they neared a structure, resembling a Ziggurat with runways going into it. Several odd-looking ships patrolled the mustard-grey skies with green wingtips like beacons of justice. Soon they saw a large ring of flashing lights, on a metal pad attached to the strange pyramid-like building. Landing safely, Fox and Falco escorted James out of their ship to the base. Before reaching it however, Fox said:

"Now listen, we can't explain to everyone where you came from, so for now, just stick with the story that you got dumped out of a ship, we found you in a pod and you need some rest, alright? Don't go mentioning that Zebes or human or whatever unless you wanna look suspicious, got it?"

"Alright...so you'll just head back into the skies after you drop me off right?"

"Totally," snarked Falco, "can't wait to dump yer scaly butt on this planet so ya don't shed any scales on our ship."

"Falco..." Fox reprimanded him.

"What? The kid's younger than you, I bet you moulted everytime you blinked, Fox."

"And that blue feather I found in the shower last month-"

"I WAS PREENING, OKAY!?"'

The two stopped talking as they were greeted by two canine guards of Katina. They wore green helmets with a yellow stripe in the middle, showing their pride of the base and their duty.

"This the refugee?"

"Yep," nodded McCloud, "he's all yours. He won't be any trouble, right James?"

"Uhm, no sir, I just wanna be safe somewhere, please."

The submissive act wasn't entirely new to the raptor but he normally didn't put it on for strangers in normal situations. Then again, this wasn't normal either.

"Alright Mr. James. Come with us, we'll file out a form for ya."

"Thanks...well uh...bye then."

And with that awkward goodbye, he left Fox and Falco, wondering about the mercenary crew.

The place he had been dropped off at was inlaid with black and dusty yellow motifs, as well as green, reflecting their army colour and the base colour. He was a little confused as to why this mesh of colours, before he was brought up to the desk and given a form to sign his name, gender, species, planet of origin, and purpose for visiting.

He had problems with the last two.

"Uhhhh I can't...actually remember where I came from."

"Amnesia?" Said the clerk, the raptor nodding shamefully. "Just put in 'unknown' and we'll sort it out."

"Thanks. Uh...purpose for visiting?"

"Well what is it?"

"Well it's not exactly a purpose but I'm a refugee, Starfox picked me up in space and put me here to be looked after."

"Then just put in 'refugee'. Anything more we need to find out, we can just ask you."

With a nod, he filled the form out fully. The clerk asked to have a picture taken of him for security reasons to which James agreed, standing in a squared-off section to do so. A rather complex beast of a camera, like a hybrid between a medical interface and an ancient box camera, scanned him for a picture, which was then rescanned like a laminated photograph onto the form.

Soon he was accompanied further into Katina base to civilian sleeping quarters. Several people slept here, none of which wore the military fatigues of the soldiers.

"You can sleep here, all you gotta do is do what we tell you and don't start trouble, is that clear?"

"Crystal clear, sirs."

He didn't like being bossed around like this, but considering the fact it could be worse like with the space pirates of before, he decided to count his blessings and collapsed onto an unoccupied-looking bed. He sighed as he tried to let his mind unwind from the many questions it was demanding, especially after his outburst on the Great Fox, which he was starting to regret.


	3. Chapter 3 - An Independent Assault

The next day, James woke up still in Katina, a little relieved to have not moved anywhere as he was approached by a guard.

"Hey, you the refugee Starfox picked up?"

"Ahh huh."

"Right this way please."

Taken along many similar-looking corridors, with signs written in another language that was complete gibberish to him, he eventually reached what looked like a medical bay.

_Oh joy_, he thought, _ANOTHER medical room_. The doctor, a bird rather like a rooster, asked politely:

"Please lie on the bed Mr Campbell."

Doing so, a large machine above the bed scanned his body, while the doctor jotting down various scribbles into his clipboard. He looked over his patient with a curious eye.

"Have you been well lately?"

"Yeah not too bad doctor."

"You seem to have had some temporary space exposure, do you feel weak at all?"

"I recovered more on Starfox's ship, so I'm okay now."

"...Hmmmm."

The raptor was now worried by that particular oddly disapproving sound doctors tended to make. As the machine finished its scanning, he brought out a small hammer for testing reflexes.

"Just a few tests to see if you're functioning well, sit up for me."

James sat up and let his legs dangle over, letting his knee be tapped, jerking slightly at such. The doctor then kept on with the questions.

"Are you experiencing any pain or fatigue?"

"Nope, just really confused is all."

"Your initial sign-in to the base reports you have amnesia."

"Ahh huh."

"What is the last thing you remember recently?"

"Being in a pod in space, just floating there, then Starfox picked me up I guess."

"And yet you seem to have been exposed to space for several seconds."

"Well...my pod was barely holding itself together, it was kinda damaged, I remember before blacking out there was this widening tear and panicking like hell."

"I see..." A few more scribbles. "Your right arm appears to have been mended at some point, care to explain?"

"Oh..."

He thought back to how that had happened, an embarrassing memory for his more adult mind.

"Yeah I was riding motorcycles when I was a teenager, skidded into a wall and my arm got crushed between wall and bike. God I was stupid back then."

"We all regret our youth somehow, don't worry.. Hmm...how is your nano-regulation?"

"My what?"

"Your body, it shows traces of nanocells circulating with your blood."

"Wh...what's nanocells?"

"You don't know?"

"N-no?"

"...Hmm...if it's okay with you I would like to keep you in for observation."

"Am I in trouble doc?"

"Not exactly, I am more concerned about your amnesia as well as your ignorance of an entire complex of nanocellular construction within your own body. It might help me discover your origins and cure your amnesia too. Is that okay by you?"

"Uh...I guess so."

And so he remained in the medical bay, yet again, and getting all the more tired of it to. He was given a more thorough examination all over, including a colonoscopy, which he more minded for how cold the tube felt rather than the tube itself going inside him.

An hour later, the doctor had finished his examination of James.

"Well, you're in peak condition overall Mr Campbell, but your nanos are rather interesting."

"What about them exactly?"

"Nothing managed to help trigger your memory unfortunately but these nanos seem beneficial to you. They do assist in increasing your healing rate by twice the speed."

"Really?"

"Indeed, though there is this matter of your neural pathways here."

"My what?"

"Your brain, I mean. It has a connection to the nanos, and...may I say this is VERY unusual, I've never seen anything like this, apparently it-"

A sudden alarm cut him off rather abruptly.

_**"RED ALERT! RED ALERT! THE PERIMETER HAS BEEN BREACHED, ALL PILOTS MUST HEAD TO THEIR SHIPS IMMEDIATELY! CIVILIANS MUST EVACUATE TO THE SAFETY ZONES, REPEAT, CIVILIANS TO SAFETY ZONES!"**_

The sudden blaring alert made the raptor panic, the rooster also fretting but trying to remain calm.

"Wha-wha-what's happening?!"

"It's Andross. Quick Mr Campbell, head into the safety bunker underground and assist any civilians who need help. I must attend to my patients."

"What's wrong, they can't walk!?"

"Some of them, as well as more severe cases."

"Can I help you then?"

"...I appreciate the offer but I cannot allow-"

"THIS IS AN INVASION DAMMIT, I'm in peak condition, I can help, you said so yourself!"

"...very well. Follow me and follow my orders precisely."

The two headed off to the patient wards. In essence the entire region of Katina he was in was its own hospital. He never expected what seemed essentially an army base to be so well-fitted, but then he didn't know if anyone else lived on this planet. Were there even any other cities or towns? Perhaps this was the only hospital here. Either way, he didn't want to feel useless and cower in a safety bunker. The last time that happened to him, he ended up on Zebes alone.

The hospital had rows upon rows of patients in various conditions, with a few severe cases of missing limbs This was the evidence he saw of the war with Andross. Soldiers, civilians, children with some sort of physical loss. The doctor ordered:

"Mr Campbell, I want you to assist the wounded from beds thirteen to twenty. You must keep them calm and to file them towards the safety bunker, the guards outside the room will escort you. Is that clear?"

"Yes doctor!"

He ran to the beds he was ordered to help with, mainly adults with a few women who weren't that badly injured compared to the rest. They did however have an incomplete number of arms, eyes and ears.

"Hey guys, we gotta get outta here!"

"Who the hell are you!?"

"Never mind that, we gotta get to the safety bunker, I'll help you!"

After some convincing the patients got up in single file trying not to panic as they were escorted by this strange reptile to the guards who looked upon him with suspicion.

"You're that refugee, whatcha doing here?"

"The doc was checking me when the alert went and asked me to help, okay? Now come on, get these guys into the bunker!"

Walking together with the guards keeping their guns at the ready, the party winded its way through few corridors before the base shook with explosions, making some of the patients fall over, James rushing to make sure they didn't land on their fractured limbs.

"What the fuck was that!?"

"Ship musta crashed into the base, everyone stick together!"

"Ships?! Will there be any enemy soldiers coming into the base, sir?"

"Hopefully it'll stay an aerial battle like usual, but we better stay ready. You know how to fight?"

"Sure, but I never really used a gun."

"Then you stay with your claws and knock down any enemies that come close okay?"

One of the guards went to behind the group so both ends would be guarded, as they made their way further into the depths of the base. Soon enough they faced a large thick metal door, like the entrance to a vault. The guards input a code, then scanned their retinas before it opened surprisingly swift for such a huge door. The wounded went inside, before one of the guards went in to protect and look after them, the door closing after them.

"Alright, what's yer name kid?"

"James."

"Right, James, we go back to the bay and escort more of the wounded out, they're gonna be bringing out the ones without legs or so."

They rushed back to the medical bay. Thankfully no one had any extra injuries and the doctor rooster waited for the armed escort, a few more guards rushing to the scene for extra cover as the doctor took charge. James noticed some patients remained very bed-ridden, seemingly in no condition to be moved.

"Alright, we must escort the wounded to the vault as smoothly as possible, a few of our nurses and doctors will also accompany you to aid them if they need it before we return here to treat any who need immediate attention, is that clear?"

The guards nodded before those who could be moved were slowly escorted back the same way. More crashes were felt throughout the base, as James and the civilians helped keep the more wounded upright. One blast sent a few of the crippled patients down and almost broke themselves even more. Howls of anguish cut throughout the corridors, as the escorting medical staff handed out morphine to lessen the pain.

James had never been in a warzone before, the reality of which was making him shake with panic. Debris was starting to collapse down on the halls, endangering everyone, the raptor keeping an eye out on any that could hurt them. Eventually they reached the safety bunker once again. The guard opened it again to let the wounded and medical staff inside as important civilians, before retreating back with only one doctor and nurse in tow, in case they met anyone injured along the way.

One crashed ship collided into the base hard, and even more debris fell down, blocking a few corridors off. What they were more concerned of though was the ship itself that had wedged itself into one. The cockpit opened up, as its pilot crawled out pathetically.

"It's one of Andross' ships!"

The guards aimed their rifles, ready to fire before the doctor shouted:

"STOP, don't shoot!"

The pilot was a monkey, a white-furred one with pink rings around his eyes, weakly clambering from the wreckage.

"Doctor he's one of Andross' scum!"  
"But he's wounded!"

The doctor ran towards the pilot, who didn't even have a weapon and did not try to fight back. The doctor slowly moved him to the floor. James was stunned by this as he asked:

"Um...doc...isn't he one of the enemy?"

"Yes."

"So...why are you helping him?! He's a fucking ape!"

"A doctor's job is to heal, not to judge!"

"What?!"

"No matter who comes through our doors, whether it's a hero or a murderer, doctors have a duty to uphold life above all else. We let the courts judge for us, but only we do the healing. Now help me take him to the hospital unless you want to leave me here!"

James, confused by this moral code, took hold of the simian pilot grudgingly and supported him back to the hospital, not even breathing a word to him.

After a slow walk back with the guards keeping an eye out for healthier enemies, they reached the hospital, the doctor who accompanied them shouting:

"Enemy combatant here!"

The medical staff helped him onto a bed as they began to examine him over, the rooster head doctor leading it.

"Both legs broken, but we can't escort him to the bunker, they'd kill him."

"Yeah, too bad it's not everyone else's job not to judge, huh?"

Mocked James as they ignored him to begin repairing his legs, the monkey murmuring in pain.

"Shhh, you're safe now, let me work on your legs, can you talk?"

"Ahh huh..."

"Do you feel any pain other than in your legs?"

"N...no...ah...my legs..."

"Alright then, we have to operate on you so, nurse, anaesthetic please."

As they began to operate on him, James turned away a little in disgust, despite knowing he shouldn't judge those in such a way. He should know especially when reptiles were the most reviled species back home.

Most humans tend to not like reptiles for several reasons, mainly for something about original sin. He remembered hearing a few of the prophets proclaiming their hatred about it, but never knew what it meant.

Even so, he admitted to himself he wasn't fond of primates, but at least didn't hate them as much as when he was more idealistic and younger. He went up to the guards and asked:

"Well...now what?"

"We stay here and guard the ones who can't move as well as the staff. Why, you planning on going somewhere?"

"I was wondering how it looked outside."

"You ain't going outside, Starfox'll help us out with these punks."

"What, four guys against this lot?"

"They're the best pilots in the Lylat System boy, if they can't do it, no one can."

"Seriously?"

The guards nodded with such a determined hope that he wondered how truly great Starfox were. They seemed to be this invincible team, almost legendary. James decided to ask instead:

"Nothing else I can do to help?"

"You're a civilian, you shouldn't even be here but in the safety bunker...but since the doctor had you helping him, go ask him when he's done with the monkey."

"Ugh."

Time passed slowly, the shaking explosions of the base bringing everyone's nerves to the same state as the base itself, James especially for being so inexperienced to the acts of war. But not to violence. He was starting to feel the mental strain, having many an urge to run and escape the place before it collapsed.

But he remained with them, not wanting to feel a useless coward, as well as having no idea where to run. Eventually the head doctor wiped his feathered brow, and moved away from the enemy pilot.

"There, we've done the best for him. He'll never walk again but at least he will live."

"Whoop-dee-doo," said James sarcastically, "Anything else I can do doctor?"

"There's nothing we can do right now except wait for them to stop, either by our hand or theirs."

And so the long wait came, the raptor sitting in a corner trying to stay calm, but always having the feeling that the entire place was going to just suddenly collapse on top of them. And yet he could only wait, the inability to do anything making him all the more tense. He needed to do something. It was only half an hour later when news of jubilation came across the airwaves.

"**THIS IS MISSION CONTROL, TEAM STARFOX HAVE ENTERED THE PERIMETER, I REPEAT, TEAM STARFOX HAVE ENTERED THE PERIMETER. ALL PILOTS, ASSIST THEM IN THEIR MISSION.**"

"...you gotta be kidding me." murmured James to himself in amazement.

He wanted to see how they fought, and unable to wait any longer, he waited for the opportunity to leave the hospital when the guards were busy with another casualty.

Running to the nearest exit with thanks to some directions from those not so wounded along the way, he finally reached the outside. He slipped past the guards to watch the chaotic aerial battle, an insane sun-blocking brawl of ships. His sharp eyes noticed three kinds. The alien ships he already knew as being Andross' minions, dark brownish-green and shaped oddly. The winged green fighters of Katina. And one or two blue-winged fighters.

No doubt that was Starfox's ships. Was there really only four of them? They had quite the ship on them, and he never saw anyone other than the frog, the hare, the fox and the falcon.

Ducking out of sight behind a pillar, he tried to keep his eye on the blue ships, seeing them avoid the greens and take down the darker ships. Eventually, he felt the sun disappear and a loud humming sound begin to resonate from behind him. Everyone turned towards the shadow, the ships in the sky seeming to fly away from the base.

"Holy...christ."

It was a humongous ship. A giant flying saucer, almost exactly like the ones he had seen in ancient movie posters back on Earth. The mother ship itself presumably. He wondered if Andross was on it, ready to conquer this one base which must be strategically important somehow.

It opened four hatches, each one facing the four directions of the compass only to unleash even more enemy ships, a veritable swarm of them that blackened the sky. The ground soldiers panicked at the multitude of them.

All the raptor could do was gaze at the enormous spaceship, knowing in this swarm he couldn't ever hope to keep an eye on Starfox. Keeping himself out of sight and hiding from the occasional crashed ship or laser blast at the ground, a few minutes passed before one of the ships attacked one of the hatches, which promptly blew up after a multitude of laser shots.

"Di...did that thing...GO STARFOX, BLAST THAT BITCH TO HELL!"

Excited by the possibility of taking down a seemingly impossible challenge, hatch after hatch was blasted, until all four were taken down into burning clouds. And then it got nasty, by opening the centre of itself to reveal a blue glowing crystal-like structure. The blue crystal hummed with great power and slowly hovered directly over the base.

No doubt it was going to destroy it. It had the power of a cannon, everyone on the ground could feel it charging up to the point that it was almost deafening. The people panicked, some ran into the base while others ran out.

James, in the confusion of it all, ran away from the base to stare better at the mothership, awaiting the eventful destruction of Katina. But something else came instead.

Salvation. In the form of a brave assault from Starfox at the core, blasting it to kingdom come with a violent sparkling explosion. It soon set off a chain reaction of many explosions, spiralling throughout the ship like a towering inferno, lancing deeply through its heart and mind. Soon it began to topple downwards, like an unsteady spinning top, slowly crashing to the ground out of harm's way.

A colossal whooping cheer came from the base, the enemy ships dispersing from the planet into the stars the moment they realised defeat was at their door. Only the Katina fighters and Starfox now flew in the sky. One of them noticed James and circled like a friendly vulture before landing nearby. Out of it came Slippy, the short squat froggy gleaming with blinking large eyes.

"Hey, there you are! I wondered what happened to you!"

"Well I was just in the base when the attack came. Wow...you guys took down that bitch HARD!"

"That was all Fox, he's a real hero yanno!"

"Man...for a guy so young he makes a good fighter."

"You bet...wish I could be that good."

"Me too...um, need anything Slippy?"

"Actually yeah...I kinda found out something about you that you might wanna hear, if you wanna hop back to the Great Fox for a li'l meeting?"

"What about me exactly?"

"Well...I think I know where you came from."


	4. Chapter 4 - The Deep Blue Wonder

James returned to the Great Fox temporarily to hear what Slippy had discovered about him. Despite being sure he was from very far away, he wasn't sure how far away he was, and with Fox's permission, the team had their meeting on the bridge, with the crew in their usual places and James himself made to stand before them, feeling as if he was in a court, which was something he was familiar with in his younger days.

"Alright Slip," began the captain, "what didya find out about our refugee?"

"Well, I was doing this in my spare time and didn't wanna freak ya out...but our guest isn't from around here."

"Wow...oh wow," Falco clapped sarcastically, "That is amazing, props to Slippy for figuring out THE FIRST AND ONLY THING WE FREAKING KNOW ABOUT HIM."

"What I mean iiiiiiiis that, when I say, not from around here...I mean he's not from this galaxy."

"...wait what?"

"I was looking at these particle traces that James has on him, they don't match anything in the Lylat system or beyond that we know of."

"...so..."

A smirk came to the raptor's lips as he looked at Falco, the realisation sinking in slowly.

"I maybe fell out of a black hole huh? ...wait, I DID!?"

"Woah woah woah, particle traces?!"

Peppy interjected with surprise, hands up to try and deflect imaginary obstacles of confusion.

"But those are only on ships when they warp!"

"Only thing that makes sense to me!" replied Slippy. "He's got 'em all over his body! You warped across the galaxy on yer own! That's why we can't find Zebes or anything you talk about on our maps, you're not even from this galaxy, maybe not even this reality!"

"WHAT!? No...no no no no no, this is too fucking much, your science and shit just DOES NOT WORK HERE!"

Falco rubbed his forehead with frustration and mocked:

"Hate to break it to ya dino boy but, you got any other explanation?"

"Are you SURE I didn't just jump across galaxies or something? You must have scanned a lot of 'em surely!?"

"Nope." Slippy was resolute. "Didn't ya hear me? Particle traces you got on ya do not come from ANYWHERE here! That can only come from like another dimension or another universe! I even heard rumours of stuff like that happening in black holes, it's the same kinda stuff but at least we can recognise the ones we have!"

"How the fuck can you do that?!"

"We have a very comprehensive list of particle emissions around our science bases, even from near black holes as good as we can and I studied up on all of them!"

"Oh look at you the little brainiac, okay smartass, tell me, where did I come from?"

"I dunno, you're the one who came here."

"Uuuuuuurrrrrrrgh...I don't know HOW it happened...wait...if...I jumped from...Zebes to here...then that means I jumped from Earth to Zebes too."

"Earth?" Fox asked curiously.

"My home planet. Oh please tell me that's there."

A scan through the galaxy map by Peppy showed negative results. James swore a muffled curse into his palms as Fox spoke with sympathy.

"Hey hey, it's okay James, we'll find a way to get you back home but you gotta bear with us realising this as well."

"I guess so...I just can't believe it...I warped to somewhere else, I didn't even know I could do that, I-"

"Well it's hardly your nanos now is it?"

"My wha...OH the nanos!? What the hell are those, the doctor on Katina told me I had them!"

"You...don't know you have them?"

"NO! What are they, why is everyone making me feel like an idiot!?"

"Well take a look in the mirror sometime," said Falco, who made James' frustration flare.

"I swear to god, one more word and I will fucking BREAK that beak of yours you prick!"

"Hey hey hey!"

Fox took authority of the situation, raising a finger towards James to mean silence.

"Don't...get angry on my ship. Falco, don't antagonise him, he's very confused right now. Slippy, explain his nanos to him."

"Okay." The frog began his explanation. "Well, they're like tiny little computers in your body running all over your little veins. They basically increase your body's efficiency like increasing your healing rate, make you more agile, and there's this weird thing in your brain too, like a neurocentre."

"Neurocentre?"

"Yeah, like the main hub for all the nanos, whatever's in there is making them all work."

"Well can't you get them out of me, I don't like the idea of them crawling all over my insides!"

"It's not like that, come on, they're nanos! They're harmless if they're inside you, I mean if they didn't wanna help you at the start they'd have torn you to pieces from the inside out by now!"

"That's REALLY not helping."

"But what I mean is, they're helping you James. You got some bruises on ya I noticed from recently, like laser blasts and some uhh...internal damage, but they healed up real good."

"What do you mean internal damage?"

Before Slippy could explain that, an urgent monotonous voice came on the intercom.

"ATTENTION STARFOX. WE ARE APPROACHING AQUAS."

The crew shook their heads clear as the four checked their screens immediately. Fox took command with an order.

"Peppy, report."

"Well now...looks like an entirely aquatic planet...of course! This is the place that's been reported to have one of Andross' bio-weapons, deep in the ocean depths!"

"Okay...damn we don't have anything to do underwater missions."

"Not yet we don't!" Slippy butted in with triumphant tones. "My dad's been working on a lil submarine, which I got moved to our hangar sometime back to work on when we needed it! I haven't had time to finish it but-"

"Say no more Slip, get it done soon as possible."

"Okay! Though I'd like some help on it to get it done faster..."

He scanned the room for potential people to work with, all of whom made excuses. Peppy, Fox and Falco gave their reasons.

"Slippy you know I got to keep my eyes on the scanners."

"And I was never much of a mechanic myself."

"And I just hate you."

"Darn..."

He looked over towards the last one on deck.

"Hey, James, you know how to fix stuff?"

"...I..." Eyes all watched him curiously. "I can fix my bike at home sometimes?"

"Good enough!"

The frog grabbed the raptor's arm and ran down the hallways, dragging him along. The crew behind them chuckled to themselves at the unfortunate one to be Slippy's working partner.

The hangar bay was a naturally large room of faded green walls, with veins of electricity running through them embedded with nary a spark. A soothing hum emanated throughout the entire place. Four of the blue-tipped fighter ships rested solemnly side by side, against the walkway to allow easy access into them. Now that he was able to see their size up close, he marvelled at their design. He also noted a similar-coloured tank to one side of the room, of the same size with steps on it.

"Wow...you guys were awesome in these things."

"Oh those are the Arwings, our own specially designed fighter ships. Come on, we gotta work on the Blue Marine!"

"The what now?"

"My submarine silly! Come on come on!"

"Okay okay christ keep your shirt on!"

Mercilessly dragged to a separate bay, James saw a deep pit of water where a small submarine floated within, half-finished. It looked like the length of an arwing but with probably more room, a rather bulky looking beast.

"Not a bad li'l thing there."

"I'm real proud of it! Soon as I heard about Aquas, I was working on this whenever I got a chance."

"You sure love mechanical stuff dontcha?"

"Of course! It's so fascinating how machines work! I mean with this there's so much going on! The spectrum resonators, the periscopal visor, the hydraulic suspension/propulsor engine-"

"Okay okay I get it, I'm not getting any of this, just point me at things and give me a wrench okay?"

"Hehehe, sorry sorry. Okay, firstly I gotta work on the spectrum resonators, they're a BIG part of the ship's weapons system."

"Really?"

"Yep, I've got an idea to make infinite torpedoes!"

"...infinite?"

"Yep."

"...how does that even work?"

"Same way the lasers do, but with a more powerful focus of the spectrum resonator, I can make a phosphorous energy blast with as much power as a torpedo! It can work not only as a flare but as a powerful unlimited weapon in itself! They don't even have to be stored, they just get made like a slower ball laser!"

"...riiight...so...uhhhh..."

Slippy sighed at the scientific ineptitude of his working partner, and handed him a wrench before pointing at an exposed region of the submarine hull.

"Just tighten that spinning glowing bit as tight as you can okay?"

"NOW you're speaking my language!"

"Well technically I'm not but-"

_"Whatever!"_

James went to work on the Blue Marine with Slippy, guided by the young prodigy of a mechanic on what to tighten, what to replace, what to examine, and what to add. He was essentially an extra pair of hands able to know the difference between a wrench and a spanner, even with some tools James did not recognise. More industrial tools, the kind he expected on construction sites.

As they worked, James remembered something Slippy had said earlier and asked:

"Uhhh...Slippy, remember that internal damage you said I had before?"

"Yeah?"

"Uhm...where was it exactly?"

"It's kinda...well you should know but...uhm...your uhh...rear end."

"My...ahh...ohhh shit."

He put his head in his hands as he realised clearly what that was. He really didn't want to remember it so soon.

"Did something...bad happen James?"

"Yeah I guess you could call rape something bad couldntcha?"

He knew there really was no hiding it, so he said it as casually as possible, trying to get past it despite trying to forget. The statement made the frog stop with shock.

"You...you were...w-what?"

"Space pirates dude. I told ya about that when you picked me up, their captain did it...fucking bastard took liberty of me. I admit I'm bi but that...that was the most painful thing I ever had in my life, worse than being shot or having my arm broken."

"Oh...I-i'm so sorry I-"

"It's alright, you didn't know. You at least told me I was all fixed back there, I was worrying about that...although...the doctor on Katina didn't mention it though."

"What?"

"He was scanning me over, he knew my nanos and my arm was broken once but he didn't mention anything about my ass."

"Well it's not like he was really checking your lower parts right?"

"He was doing a really thorough scan, I mean he even stuck a tube up my ass!"

"Well I don't think he was gonna ask you about it right? Maybe he guessed what it was and thought it was a real sensitive issue right?"

"...yeah that makes sense. He didn't have time to tell me everything anyway. Anyways, sorry, let's just fix this thing."

Slippy nodded and the two worked together in awkward silence, occasionally exchanging a word when James needed to know what to do next or when Slippy needed a particular tool.

A few hours later, the Blue Marine was ready for transport as Slippy said, high-fiving James as he pressed the intercom button in the hangar.

"Hey guys, we fixed the Blue Marine up!" to which Fox replied:

"Excellent Slippy, we'll be reaching Aquas' surface in an hour so hang tight."

James wiped his forehead and sat down in a corner.

"Hoo...I never got to work on something so complex before, last thing I fixed was my bike's muffler."

"Really? What was wrong with it?"

"Oh I crashed it and the muffler got all bent out of shape, nothing I couldn't handle even if I'm kind of a novice at this."

"Heeeey you helped me fix the Blue Marine, you're not bad!"

"Well...it is pretty advanced but you were the one telling me what to do."

"Hehehe, well...listen, James, I've been real curious about you and these warp particles."

"Uhhh huh?"

He wasn't sure where this was going but he kept listening.

"Well...since they're on your actual body...have you ever been in a machine or anything like a teleporter?"

"Mmmmmnope."

"You ever had any weird feelings before you ended up here?"

"I...don't think so-wait...waaaait yes something I did do, both times actually now that I think back enough."

"Ah huh?"

"I remember wishing really hard to be somewhere else. Somewhere far away, and when I did it hard enough, like REALLY trying cuz both times I was really really praying, I...well kinda drifted into sleep. Not even noticing it, just this weird blue light and a tingling all over my body."

"Hmmm..."

lippy began thinking up a theory before coming out with an almost immediate one a few minutes later.

"Both times you REALLY wanted to be elsewhere?"

"Yeah."

"Why didya wanna be elsewhere?"

"First time was because of uhm...some people wanted to kill me. They were hunting me down, I hid in this small room in my home and they didn't find me yet, but they would've soon."

"And the second time?"

"The planet I was on, Zebes, was going crazy, it was gonna explode, I shit you not, it was actually gonna self-destruct!"

"Woah...yer real unlucky yanno that?"

"I don't think I wanna know that." said James with a disapproving tone.

"Okay okay, but...I'm thinking the adrenaline, the fact you were in life-threatening danger, maybe the nanos must react to that for ya."

"...these things in me can make me teleport?"

"I can't think of anything else."

The very idea made James' head spin, and he clutched himself with a fearful surge at the consequences.

"...what the hell did the Armee want with me?"

"Which Army?"

"Never mind, you seem to know about this nano shit, you think you can help me get home?"

"I could try. But thing is, it has to make you fear for your life enough to make you get the right adrenaline to teleport. I could create a life threatening situation for you, and all you gotta do is think of being home!"

"...but...wouldn't that life threatening situation cause me pain? And wouldn't it be life threatening if I DIDN'T know there was safety involved."

"Ohhhh I'll work that out. But the next time it happens, wish you were home, okay?"

"Alrghty."

And so time passed enough for the Blue Marine to be deployed, when the Great Fox "landed" on Aquas. Or rather floated on the surface of Aquas which seemed to be entirely aquatic, of course. Not one stretch of land above water seemed to exist, the raptor gazing out across the infinite ocean with wonder.

"Woooooow. I just realised I never learnt how to swim."

Falco walked past him replying:

"Oh good, I can drown you if you start acting up."

At this point, James just started accepting this guy was a sarcastic dick and replied:

"Oh you can swim then? I didn't know you were a duck, you fuck."

A little shrug of what he assumed was a snigger came from Falco, as he went to his place on the bridge. Fox headed down into the Blue Marine and Slippy giving instructions to him. After that the submarine was deployed and into the ocean. James walked up beside the frog and asked:

"Well, he's off in the sub, now what Slippy?"

"We head to the bridge to monitor his progress."

Walking to the bridge he wondered why he was even here on the Great Fox and not back at Katina again.

"Slippy...why am I here?"

"Hmm?"

"Why am I not back on Katina after you guys took down Andross' ship?"

"Well I said you needed to be studied more with my technology, something when I first found ya made me worry so I signed ya out."

"Ohhh."

"Whatcha mean Andross' ship?"

"That huge-ass mothership that nearly blasted Katina."

"Ahhh hahaha, that's not Andross' ship! He never goes out in one now, he's too crazy for that!"

"So...he's still alive?"

"Of course, why else we going to Aquas and onwards to fight him?!"

"I didn't think that...hehe, okay sorry."

As the two reached the bridge, a new screen was given notice, what appeared to be a direct link to the Blue Marine. An entire world underwater was revealed, beautifully laid out with abandoned ancient ruins and strange minerals. The beauty was not lost on James, even with the bio-organisms that tried to attack the submarine, presumably Andross' work.

"What are those things?" he asked.

"Andross' creations," said Falco with a knowing nod. "Thinks he's some kinda god to be able to make this kind of insane stuff."

"So what are you guys looking for?"

"Not sure, but it's big, we only know that."

Minutes passed slowly as they all paid attention to the screen. Torpedoes and laser blasts from the sub lit up the surroundings, while fending off any enemies that tried to attack Fox. James felt a sense of pride to have been part of the making of the vessel, even if he had only been an extra set of hands.

Fox kept sending data of his surroundings from the vessel which Slippy analysed constantly, always on the job. It made James feel rather useless, seeing as he was standing around, but he did at best keep an eye on the visor.

"Looks like the pollution has started." said Peppy.

He observed the murkiness of the habitat and judging by the impurity levels on the sub's scanners, Slippy shook his head in disbelief at the figures.

"It's awful..."

His sadness was enlightened upon when Fox came through a corridor of ancient columns, making him gasp with wonder.

"Wooow! Look at that! It's beautiful! How's the Blue-Marine, Fox?"

Slippy asked this with nervous excitement, only given in reply a thumbs up as the submarine spinned and strafed with surprising speed, lighting the way with the torpedoes.

"It's a good thing you prepared, Slip."

Peppy was equally impressed by the sturdiness and agility of the vessel, while Falco was, as always, pessimistic.

"This thing will never hold together."

As the ship continued to trawl the ocean depths, a huge barrage of laser shots from the bioweapons suddenly hit towards the submarine.

"Woah! Watch out!"

"Do a barrel roll!"

Fox took Peppy's advice well when most of the lasers were deflected with expert rolling. To James, the sight of a submarine barrel-rolling was strangely funny, and he suppressed his sniggering well. A menagerie of freakish beasts came and went, either destroyed or left behind such as exploding starfish, an electric triangle of jellyfish, and looming monstrous hatchetfish.

Soon enough, the source of the pollution was found in the very depths, nestled in a cave after a particularly dangerous trench of falling rocks. Fox's only comment was thus.

"I've found the bio-weapon."


	5. Chapter 5 - Homesick or Spacesick?

What showed up on the visor was frightening. A humongous clam, the length of twice the Blue Marine and three times it's height. It opened up to reveal two thick veiny strands like tonsils, and one huge green eye gazing at the intruder with a dangerous intent. It slammed back shut with a force that pushed the sub away, but Fox stood his ground as Slippy said:

"Enemy shield analyzed!"

The clam revealed three strange holes on its top, which spurted out creepy long-bodied beasts with faces like gasmasks. They hurtled towards the sub but were soon dodged or blasted entirely.

"Aim for the two columns!"

Peppy shouted with anxiety, sweating at how they would defeat this monster. Fox kept busy with shooting the holes on top of the clam, one of them crippled beyond repair as it slinked off the side of the clam before it opened its maw. The columns were now fresh for shooting, receiving a full assault onto them. Even Falco got excited.

"That's it, Fox!"

James kept watching, afraid to say anything for not really being in the crew as its column turned weak with Slippy squealing:

"Fire a homing torpedo!"

It did the trick perfectly as one column was broken entirely before the clam shut once again and shot more strange long-bodied attackers. It soon added to its attack several exploding pearl-shaped depth charges. It opened once more after Fox destroyed all of its top holes, the next column his target as it was blasted in the same way. The clam's top part was now fully detached and Fox shot at the centre with Peppy turning hot-blooded.

"Go for the eyes!"

The clam wasn't done yet, with a balloon-like fleshy shield swelling to protect its main eye, but it was soon cut through immediately. Each time it showed its eye, it was given a serious case of laser eye surgery with a torpedo, crippling it with every hit. Every shield it remade, it would only be taken apart to be shot in the cornea once again. Eventually, the pain was too much, and the creature made a guttural bubbling gurgle before it promptly exploded.

"Yippee!" cried Slippy in joy as James hugged him in excitement. "You did it!"

Afterwards Fox slowly made his way back to the Great Fox, his voice steady like a finely-honed blade.

"We're preparing to dock. Thanks, Slip. Blue Marine came through."

"Slippy's not such a screw-up after all," joked Peppy who nudged the frog on the shoulder, who replied not-so-jokingly:

"Thanks a lot, Peppy!"

"I'll take the sky anyday." was Falco's only contribution.

Slippy made his way back to the hangar with James following up behind to offer support.

"Hey, they know you did good, you made the bloody thing after all."

"I know, but sometimes I feel like a screw-up, I admit I'm not the best pilot, hell I AM the worst of the team at flying but they always come to me when they want their G-diffusers tuned up!"

"Well Fox appreciated it at least, and as captain, his opinion matters the most right?"

"...I guess...thanks."

"Listen uhh...now that this Aquas is done, you think you can get me home at all?"

"Weeeeelllll..."

The two kept wondering along the halls before Slippy reached a certain small corridor and backed out behind James before locking the place tight. Doors on each side of the corridor closed suddenly. Slippy made a comm signal to the bridge as James banged on the door.

"Hey, what's going on!?"

"I-i-i dunno, the doors just...stupid thing I can NEVER get this working!"

"Uhm...you CAN get me out right?"

"Yeah yeah I can, just hang on."

"Hey whassup?"

Falco came alongside Slippy into James' view through the door's window, as Slippy explained best as he could.

"This stupid corridor again's malfunctioning, remember last time?"

"Ohhhh...hehehe yeah yeah, don't worry dino boy, we'll getcha out of there."

"God...well what can I do then?! Why is this corridor even like this!?"

"Just hang tight, I think I can get it fixed, we have these security systems all over, now I just hope it doesn't-"

_**"WARNING. DECOMPRESSION IN CORRIDOR B-5. REPEAT, DECOMPRESSION IN CORRIDOR B-5."**_

The lights around James started to flicker around him to red alert, as he started to feel the air suck away from the room. The oxygen was even slowly sucked out from his lungs, as he choked and crumpled to the floor.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING!?" screamed the raptor hoarsely.

"I DUNNO," cried out Slippy in a panic. "THE STUPID CORRIDOR'S GONE INTO LOCKDOWN, DON'T WORRY JAMES I CAN FIX IT!"

"OH GOD I...I-I-I CAN'T BREATHE!"

"JUST REMEMBER WHAT I TOLD YOU, IF ALL ELSE FAILS!"

Not a good thing to hear but he tried vigorously to remember. And then it hit him. What perfect timing to have a near-death situation to use his technique. He did his best to pray to be home, begging with the same near-death desperation he had twice before, the same fear for his life.

"Please...t-t-take me home...please...I wanna go home...I wanna be home in Chicago..."

He murmured this to himself as he turned weaker, trying his best to keep wishing the most, hoping the nano-thingies would listen.

He felt it come again. A strange blue spark. shimmering around him. Falco gazed with surprise at the strange coldness that began to suck at James' body...and yet it would not hold. No matter how hard he prayed to be home, it would not remain stable. It was literally a small black hole appearing in the corridor, the frog and falcon gasping at it.

"No...fucking way," was Falco's only words.

The air was gone from the room and yet the black hole did not hold. It kept trying to take him in but somehow wouldn't recognise him, and it began to fade away again. The tear in space merely closed up once more, leaving a barely conscious raptor starving of oxygen on the floor.

"Why...didn't...work...HhhhaaAGHK!"

"HOLD ON I ALMOST GOT IT!"

Slippy reconfigured the corridor panel and the air returned to the place, the raptor heaving in air hungrily, choking as it came back to his lungs fully.

"Oh I'm so sorry James! Quick we gotta take you to sickbay, Falco help me!"

Falco wordlessly carried the raptor to the medical bay, a little too stunned to make any sarcastic comments. James, weakened from oxygen deprivation, kept coughing as his body started to breathe again properly when he laid down.

"I...it wouldn't work Slippy."

"What?"

"The warping...it failed. I dunno why. It was exactly like before, but it wouldn't take me home..."

"I'm sorry...I really wanted to help you get home...I didn't even wanna do that to you."

"Do...what?"

"I...made the corridor decompress."

At this, James grabbed the scruff of the frog's jacket and brought him close to his teeth-baring snout.

"You WHAT!? You could have fucking KILLED me, you little pondsucking cunt!"

"I-i-i-i'm sorry, I'm sorry I wanted to help you home!"

"By choking me to death!?"

"I told you before, the warp only worked with you in fear of your life, or at least in a state of mind that REALLY made you wanna be elsewhere! And it worked didn't it?!"

"If it worked, WHY AM I STILL ON YOUR FUCKING SPACESHIP!?"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

Slippy began to well up with tears in his bulbous eyes, with James greatly resisting the urge to punch him in the stomach hard. Instead, he opted to shove him across the room, the frog landing with a thud and a small whimper as James said:

"Get out."

"But James-"

"I SAID GET OUT YOU USELESS PIECE OF _SHIT!_"

With tearful angry eyes Slippy fled the room as James punched the wall in frustration. He was angry at Slippy for endangering him certainly, but he was also angry at himself for the one time he wanted to go home, in his mind of wanting to go home, and yet he couldn't. That his warping had failed, if it could even be called that, something he still could not believe. He let himself stain his face with tears of rage, murmuring angrily to himself.

"I just want to go home..."

Sometime later, the door opened and he looked to see Fox walk in, his face as cool as ever. He tried to be polite to the captain, even in his mood.

"What do you want, captain?"

"I was checking up on you, heard Slippy had a little experiment that didn't go to plan."

"Your little friend nearly killed me, so pardon me if I'm a little pissed off."

"I understand, I reprimanded Slippy and had his pay docked with a little lesson for endangering a civilian."

"...thanks. By the way...you're a hero you know that?"

"Haha, what makes you think that?"

"You took down that huge-ass alien ship at Katina, you rescued me from choking in space and you took care of that...thing in Aquas. Makes me wish I could be like you."

"Hey, everyone's got the potential to be a hero. All it takes is the will to be one."

"What gives you the will then?"

"Me?"

Fox pondered as he sat down besides James, offering a friendly voice to soothe his passenger's mood.

"Probably my father. Started the original Starfox team with Peppy. He was a hero to everyone, did so much for the Lylat system...then Pigma betrayed him."

"Sorry to hear. So...what about your mum?"

"She died when I was real young."

"Damn...I know the feeling too, I never knew either of my parents, they got killed in a riot."

"You don't even remember them, James?"

"Don't even know what they look like, or even what they did or even what they thought of me."

"That's a real shame. Well, that answers your question at least."

"What's that?"

"What gives me the will to be a hero. My dad does, I feel his spirit guides me to keep the spirit of Starfox alive."

"So...you ever considered what you'd do after this?"

"What after? This team's all I have. I got nowhere else to be, I feel it's my destiny to keep this team and keep the Lylat system free of tyranny. Until then, I'm never gonna stop living. No matter what."

The way he spoke made James gaze upon him with even more awe. A true hero, to be so selfless, giving his life entirely to the freedom of this star system. Which only saddened him all the more, and in all honesty, made him envious.

"I wish I could be like you..."

"All you need to find is the will, James. It can be anything that wants you to stop evil, from saving a lover to protecting a whole town. Heroes always start out small, sometimes they stay small. Even if you're only a hero to just one person, that makes you one."

"Well...hmmm...that sounds good to me...thanks captain."

"Just call me Fox. Now, when you're feeling better, you and Slippy make up before we gotta head out to Zoness."

"Another planet under attack?"

"Well the invasion already happened sadly, now we gotta clean up the aftermath, the place is just a toxic sea now."

"God...this Andross is seriously psychotic isn't he?"

"You have no idea."

After a few minutes, James got up, following Fox to the bridge. He had calmed down enough by the talk with the captain to talk with Slippy in better tones.

Soon the Great Fox reached the atmosphere of Zoness, a sickly-looking green planet, the sight of which made James ill at its appearance upon the monitor.

"THAT'S Zoness?"

Fox nodded solemnly at the tragic fate that had fallen upon it.

"Yep...used to be a paradise resort. Everyone loved Zoness, it was the most beautiful planet in the Lylat System."

"This is...just fucking awful."

"And that's why we gotta stop Andross, I bet if he can't rule the Lylat system, he'll easily wanna destroy it."

"How can you destroy an entire solar system!?"

"Oh he can. And he will."

Wondering what Andross even was, the team made their preparations, analysing the proper trajectory and the layout of the place. According to Peppy, it was heavily guarded with a security system. The raptor caught up with Slippy and said:

"Slippy! Uhm...I wanna say...sorry for what I said."

"Oh...it's okay...I'm sorry too."

With the apology over and done with, James nudged his shoulder playfully.

"Hey, knock 'em dead out there alright?"

"Hehehe, I'll try!"

As the team began to prepare, James was tempted to ask one question. He knew that it worked before, that it managed to create the same effect but sdespite the danger he was in it did not. He asked again:

"Slippy...do you know what went wrong with the experiment we did?"

"Well..."

"I know I did it right, it felt EXACTLY like the rest before but somehow I couldn't like...SEE my home in my head right."

"Well...I noticed something kinda odd. This kinda happened a few years back but there are ships that have their warp system locked with the navigation system, so you picked a place to go and BAM it took you there without any need to charge up. They were more advanced but if you put in coordinates that didn't match, then the warp engines would kinda...well stutter and stop, weirdly a lot like yours did."

"So...what does that mean?"

"Uhh...it means you need the coordinates of your home planet to get back?"

"...I'm not a fucking ship, why do I need coordinates, I have a BRAIN!"

"I dunno, it's you! I mean you must know about the Lylat system and that Zebes place before!"

"I NEVER heard of Lylat or Zebes ever until I landed on them. I dunno how I could possibly get to those without knowing about them!"

"Well your brain's got a CPU board in it, it must have it all stored separately like an external hard drive, but not with your home coordinates."

"...I wanna do it again."

"What!?"

"Just let me do it again, I won't blame you this time, I KNOW how it'll happen, and I know you'll get me out of it but just do it again, it HAS to work."

"But how is it gonna work now when-"

"Please! Lemme try one more time!"

"...okay. If you REALLY wanna do it."

"Thanks. Just...gimme a chance."

They returned to the same corridor, for convenience's sake, and James was locked inside once again, this time with his permission as the warning came. The decompression set in and as soon as James felt himself run out of oxygen, he prayed as hard as he can to go home. The rest of the crew watched in on the experiment, curious of what would happen, though Falco turned impatient.

"Come on already, we gotta get to Zoness!"

"Shut up I'm trying to concentrate fuckhead!"

"Oh I'm sorry, it's just that while you wanna go back to your happy li'l lizard village, we gotta save a freakin' planet but noooo! We gotta wait for you the special passenger who wants to waste everybody's time to go crossing into other dimensions and whatever! Sure sure let's just stop everything and take five, go and tell Andross-"

"SHUT UP FALCO!"

Slippy's outburst surprised everyone, as James got distracted by Falco's talk. Now all he could hear was that incessant thick sarcasm in his head, repeating the insult about his "little village" and crossing into other dimensions. And then his mind did that strange linking up of words that he never really remembered happening before.

Villages, the idea of a happy perfect little community. The oxygen sucked from his body more and more as he collapsed onto the ground, into a blue light that tore through a hole in the space around him, but more stronger now.

It began to suck him in, slowly but surely. To the Starfox team, it looked like what would happen to a ship being sucked into a black hole, the raptor being stretched through it as he choked into unconsciousness and was soon no more. Within a rushing whirling sound that strangely did not dare to consume anything else around it but the raptor, it soon disappeared, without a trace. No more velociraptor. No more black hole.

"Wha...HE DID IT!"

Slippy squealed with excitement at the fervent hope that his temporary friend had returned home at last. Fox and Peppy gave him a pat on the back as Fox said:

"Well done Slip. You did a real good service to him to get him back home."

"Awwww it was nothing Fox, least I could do for helping me with the Blue Marine, unlike any of YOU jerks!"

"Whatever," shrugged Falco as he headed to the Hangar. "Now come on already! I wanna get Zoness over and done with and wipe those punks off of it!"

And so the team headed onwards with their mission minus one passenger, one worry left entirely out of equation.

But James was still going to be very far away from home, and yet he would find his own slice of paradise to be ruined, somewhere else.


End file.
